The FBI defended the handling of its legal battle with Apple over encryption following an abrupt retreat from its bid to force the tech giant to help unlock an attacker’s iPhone. As our colleagues Ellen Nakashima and Elizabeth Dwoskin report, “FBI Director James B. Comey seemed to reject one popular proposal that has taken off online – to remove the phone’s chip and make thousands of copies of the encrypted data on it. ‘I’ve heard that [method] a lot, ‘ Comey said at a news conference”. The Justice Department sought to unlock Feng’s phone to find other conspirators.
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Flowers and a note of mourning for victims are placed at the Inland Regional Center, the site of the mass shooting, in San Bernardino City of Southern California, the United States, December 3, 2015. “It looked like it might work”.
He added that the case “was not about trying to send a message or set a precedent; it was and is about fully investigating a terrorist attack”.
The Journal said the government’s handling of the case offered “reasons to doubt their credibility and even basic competence”.
The Justice Department unexpectedly canceled the first hearing in the San Bernardino case on Monday, claiming that a “non-governmental third party” had presented it with a possible means to access the phone without Apple’s help.
Apple has asked a federal judge to postpone demands for data from a locked iPhone in a Brooklyn drug case while the FBI attempts to break into the San Bernardino shooter’s phone without Apple’s help.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counter-terrorism John Miller said in a New York Times op-ed that Apple should comply with the order, arguing that privacy fears around iPhone security features were outweighed by the need to solve crimes and keep the public safe.
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After the new idea was suggested, Comey said, “We tried it on Sunday”. But Apple’s lawyers said they will try to find out if the government claims it would not work on the NY phone.
